Ancient Robots of the 18th Century

There was a robotics study that went around the blogosphere a week or two ago talking about robot adoption rates on a country by country basis. I can’t seem to find it at the moment, but not surprisingly, per capita, Japan kicked the world’s butt in terms of robot-to-human ratio.

I think the USA was somewhere behind Switzerland.

Regardless, it shouldn’t also be that surprising that the Japanese were amongst the first to have detailed and working robots.

Robot-blogger Tim Hornyak recently took a tour of the Matsumoto Timepiece Museum in Nagano, where he happened to see some rare manuscripts with detailed plans for building karakuri ningyo, or clockwork dolls:

The manuscript is called Karakuri Zui(sometimes read as Kikou Zui) or “Illustrated Machinery.” It was written by Hanzo Hosokawa, a mechanical engineer, astronomer and inventor from the domain of Tosa on Shikoku Island. The three-volume treatise details how to make four kinds of wadokei clocks and nine types of karakuri dolls including the famous tea-serving doll. Known as Japan’s oldest mechanical engineering manuscript, the book has meticulously written notes on how to dress the dolls in kimono.